Amy: Life with the Doctor was like this—{cut to a montage of episodes}. Real life was like this.
Rory: We have two lives. Real life and Doctor life. Doesn’t feel like real life gets much of a look-in.
Amy: What do we do?
Rory: Choose? {the TARDIS sounds nearby}
Amy: Not today though.
Rory: Nah, not today.
Amy: Every time we flew away with the Doctor we’d just become part of our life. But he never stood still long enough to become part of ours. Except once. The Year of the Slow Invasion. The time the Doctor came to stay.
Rory: Dad. It’s half past six in the morning.
Brian Williams (Mark Williams): What are you doing lying around? Haven’t you seen them?!
Rory: What are they?
Brian: Nobody knows. But they’re everywhere.
Amy: Well where did they come from? Wait. Doctor?
The Doctor inspecting a cube: Invasion of the Very Small Cubes. That’s new.
Professor Brian Cox: Well they’re certainly not random space debris. They’re too perfectly formed for that. Are they extraterrestrial in origin? Well, you’ll have to ask a better man than me.
The Doctor: All absolutely identical. Not a single molecule’s difference between them. No blemishes, imperfections, individualities.
Brian: What if they’re bombs? Billions of tiny bombs? Or transport capsules maybe, with a mini-robot inside. Or deadly hard drives! Or alien eggs? Or messages needing decoding. Or. They’re all parts of a bigger whole. Jigsaw puzzles that need fitting together.
The Doctor: Very thorough, Brian. Very very thorough. Well done. Stay here, watch these. Yell if anything happens.
Amy: Doctor, is this an alien invasion? Because that’s what it feels like.
Rory: Yeah, there couldn’t be life forms in every cube, could there?
The Doctor: I don’t know. And I really don’t like not knowing.
The Doctor: Right, I need to use your kitchen as a lab. Cook up some cubes, see what happens.
Rory: Right, I’m due at work.
The Doctor: What, you’ve got a job?
Rory: Of course I’ve got a job— What do you think we do when we’re not with you?
The Doctor: I’d imagine mostly kissing.
Amy: I write travel articles for magazines and Rory heals the sick.
The Doctor: Ah the Ponds. With their house and their jobs and their everyday lives. The journalist and the nurse. Long way from Leadworth.
Amy: You think, it’s been ten years. Not for you. Or Earth. But for us. Ten years older, ten years of you. On and off.
The Doctor: Look at you now. All grown up.
Rory: There are soldiers all over my house and I’m in my pants.
Amy: My whole life I’ve dreamed of saying that, and I miss it by being someone else.
Kate Stewart (Jemma Redgrave): All these muscles and they still don’t know how to knock. Sorry about the raucous entrance. Spike in Artron energy reading at this address. In the light of the last twenty-four hours we had to check it out and, ah, the dogs do love a run out. Hello. Kate Stewart, head of scientific research at UNIT. And with dress sense like that—{checks for two hearts}—you must be the Doctor. I hoped it’d be you.
The Doctor: Tell me, since when did science run the military, Kate?
Kate: Since me. UNIT’s been adapting. Well I dragged them along, kicking and screaming. Which, which made it sound like more fun than if actually was.
The Doctor: What do we know about these cubes?
Kate: Far less than we need to. We’ve been crating them in from around the world for testing. So far, we’ve subjected them to temperatures of plus and minus two hundred celsius, simulated a water depth of five miles, dropped one out of a helicopter at ten thousand feet, and rolled our best tank over it. Always intact.
The Doctor: That’s impressive. I don’t want them to be impressive. I want them vulnerable with a nice Achilles Heel.
Kate: We don’t know how they got here, what they’re made of or why they’re here.
The Doctor: And all around the world people are picking them up and taking them home.
Kate: Like iPads have dropped out of the sky. Taking them to work, taking pictures, making films. Posting them on Flickr and YouTube. Within three hours the cube has had a thousand separate Twitter accounts.
The Doctor disdainfully: Twitter.
Kate: I recommend that we treat this as a hostile incursion. Gather them all up and lock them in a secure facility. But that would take massive international agreement and cooperation.
The Doctor: We need evidence. The cubes arrived in plain sight, in vast quantities, as the sun rose. So, what does that tell us?
Amy: Maybe they wanted to be seen, noticed.
The Doctor: Well more than that, they want to be observed. So we observe them. Stay with them, ’round the clock. Watch the cubes day and night. Record absolutely everything about them. Team Cube, in it together!
The Doctor: Four days. Nothing. Nothing! Not a single change in any cube anywhere in the world. Four days and I am still in your lounge!
Amy: You were the one who wanted to observe them.
The Doctor: Well I thought they’d do something, didn’t I? Not just sit there while everyone eats endless cereal!
Rory: You said we had to be patient.
The Doctor: Yes. You. You! Not me! I hate being patient! Patience is for wimps.
The Doctor: I can’t live like this. Don’t make me. I need to be busy.
Amy: Fine! Be busy! We’ll watch the cubes.
The Doctor: Brian. You’re still here.
Brian: You told me to watch the cubes.
The Doctor: Four days ago.
Brian: Doesn’t time fly when you’re alone with your thoughts.
Rory: You can’t just leave, Doctor.
The Doctor: Yes, of course I can. Quick jaunt, restore sanity. Oo! Hey. Come if you like.
Brian: They can’t just go off like that.
The Doctor: Can’t they? Can’t you? That’s how it goes, isn’t it?
Rory: I’ve got my job.
The Doctor: Oh yes, Rory. The universe is awaiting but you have a little job to do.
Rory: Ah. It’s not little, it’s important to me. What you do isn’t all there is.
The Doctor: I never said it was. Alright. Fine. I’ll be back, soon. Monitor the cubes. Call me. I’ll have the TARDIS set to every Earth news feed.
Rory: I said yes. I committed.
Amy: And I committed to being a bridesmaid. Months in advance. Like I know I’m gonna be here.
Rory: So the Doctor’s god knows where. The cubes aren’t doing anything at all. Did real life just get started?
Amy: I like it.
Rory: So do I.
Brian: Brian’s log. Day sixty-seven.
Rory: You, ah, you can’t call it that. Brian’s log?
Brian: Brian’s log. Day sixty-seven. Cube was quiet all night. Once again. Cube was quiet all day. As per previously. No movement. No change in measurements. End of entry.
Rory: You stay up and watch it all the time?
Brian: I film it while I’m asleep. When I wake up, I watch the footage on fast forward. I email the result the U-N-I-T. My middle name is Diligence.
Rory: Wow. I can’t wait to see day sixty-eight.
Brian: Don’t mock my log. I’m doing what the Doctor asked.
Amy leaving a message: So the UN classified the cubes as “provisionally-safe”, whatever that means. And, ah, Banksy and Damien Hirst put out a statement saying the cubes are nothing to do with them. And the cubes, well they’re just… here. Still. What’s it been, nine months? People are just taking them for granted. Maybe we’ll never know where they came but, ah, anyway. I got to Laura’s wedding. It was great. She’s here tonight. Being as it’s our wedding anniversary, we thought you might have dropped by. I left you messages.
The Doctor: I know! Happy Anniversary! Come with me! And bring your husband.
The Doctor: Twenty-sixth of June. 1890. The recently opened Savoy Hotel. Dinner, bed and breakfast for two. Bonjour, bonjour. {to the chef} Merci, Auguste. You’ll be back before the party’s over. They won’t even notice you went. No complications, I promise.
The Doctor: Bit of a shock. Zygon ship under the Savoy. Half the staff imposters. Still. It’s all fixed now, eh?
Amy: I thought we were going home!
The Doctor: You can’t miss a good wedding. Under the bed! Under the bed!
Amy: It wasn’t my fault.
Rory: It was totally your fault.
Amy: Somebody was talking and I just said, Yes.
Rory: To wedding vows! You just married Henry VIII on our anniversary.
Brian: How long were they away?
The Doctor: I don’t know what you’re talking about Brian.
Brian: Because they’re wearing totally different clothes from earlier.
The Doctor: Seven weeks. I got sidetracked. A lot.
Brian: What happen to the other people who travelled with you?
The Doctor: Some left me. Some got left behind. And some… not many, but… some died. Not them, not them, Brian. Never them.
The Doctor: Can I stay here? With you. And Rory, for a bit. Keep an eye on the cubes. However long that takes.
Amy: I thought it would drive you mad.
The Doctor: No. No no. I mean I’ll be better at it this time. I… miss you.
Brian: Brian’s log. Day 361. 8:50pm. No movement. And I am cream crackered.
The Doctor: If I had a restaurant, this would be all I’d serve.
Amy: Yeah right. You running a restaurant.
The Doctor: I’ve run restaurants. Who do you think invented Yorkshire pudding?
Rory: You didn’t.
The Doctor: Pudding, yet savory. Sound familiar?
Rory: Where’s the Doctor?
Amy: On the Wii again.
The Doctor: Oh, if Fred Perry could see me now, eh? He’d probably ask for his shorts back.
The Doctor: Whatever you are, this planet, these people are precious to me. And I will defend them to my last breath. Is that all you can do? Hover. I had a metal dog that could do that. {the cube opens} Oo! Oh, that’s clever. What’s tha— {it starts firing}
Rory: Hi. Ah, the cube in there. It just opened.
Amy: The cube upstairs just spiked me and took my pulse!
The Doctor: Really? Mine fired laser bolts and now it’s surfing the ‘net!
Brian: You’re never going to believe this. My cube just moved. It rattled.
Rory: I have to get to work. They need all the help they can get.
Brian: Let me come, help out.
Rory: Take Your Dad to Work Night. Brilliant!
Amy: What are you grinning about?
The Doctor: We’re wanted at the Tower of London.
Kate: Every cube across the whole world activated at the same moment.
The Doctor: Now we’re in business. You sent me a message to my psychic paper. You know what, I’m almost impressed.
Amy: Secret base beneath the Tower. I hope we’re not here because we know too much.
Kate: Yes, I’ve got officers trained in beheading. Also ravens of death.
Amy: I like her.
Kate: There are fifty being monitored and more are coming in all the time. I don’t know how useful it is. Every cube is behaving individually. There’s no meaningful pattern. Some respond to proximity, some create mood swings.
Amy: Ah, what’s this one?
Kate: Try the door. {the Chicken Dance song starts} On a loop.
Kate: This is the latest.
The Doctor: Oh dear. System’s breach at the Pentagon. China. [Every] African Nation. Belize.
Kate: I’ve got every nation screaming at me for an explanation and no idea what to tell them. I’m lost, Doctor. We all are.
The Doctor: Don’t despair, Kate. Your dad never did. {she looks surprised} Kate Stewart. Heading up UNIT, changing the way they work. How could you not be. Why did you drop Lethbridge?
Kate: I didn’t want any favors. Though he guided me even to the end. “Science leads”, he always told me. Said he learned that from an old friend.
The Doctor: We don’t let him down. We don’t let this planet down.
UNIT Researcher (David Hartley): They’ve stopped. The cubes, across the world. They just shut down.
Kate: Active for forty-seven minutes and then they just die?
The Doctor: Not dead. Dormant, maybe.
Amy: Then why shut down?
The Doctor: I don’t know. I don’t know. I need to think, I need some air. Who has an underground base? Terrible ventilation.
The Doctor: The moment they arrived, I should have made sure they were collected and burned. That’s what I should have done.
Amy: But how? Nobody would have listened.
The Doctor: You’re thinking of stopping, aren’t you? You and Rory.
Amy: No. I mean, we haven’t made a decision.
The Doctor: But you’re considering it.
Amy: Maybe. I don’t know. We don’t know. Well our lives have changed so much. But there was a time—there were years—when I couldn’t live without you. When just the whole everyday thing would drive me crazy. But since you dropped us back here, since you’ve given us this house, you know, we’ve built a life. I don’t know if I can have both.
The Doctor: Why?
Amy: Because they pull at each other. Because they pull at me, and because the travelling is starting to feel like running away.
The Doctor: That’s not what it is.
Amy: Oh come on. Look at you, four days in a lounge and you go crazy.
The Doctor: I’m not running away. But this is one corner of one country on one continent on one planet that’s a corner of a galaxy that’s a corner of a universe that is forever growing and shrinking and creating and growing and never remaining the same for a single millisecond, and there is so much—so much to see, Amy. Because it goes so fast. I’m not running away from things, I am running to them. Before they flare and fade forever.
The Doctor: One day—soon maybe—you’ll stop. I’ve known for awhile.
Amy: Then why do you keep coming back for us?
The Doctor: Because you were the first. The first face this face saw. And you were seared onto my hearts, Amelia Pond. You always will be. I’m running to you, and Rory, before you fade from me.
Amy: Don’t be nice to me. I don’t want you to be nice to me.
The Doctor: Yeah you do, Pond. And you always get what you want.
The Doctor: They got what they wanted.
Amy: What? Who did?
The Doctor: The cubes. That’s why they stopped.
The Doctor: Kate, before they shut down they scanned everything. From your medical limits to your military response patterns. {the power goes out} They made a complete assessment of Planet Earth and its inhabitants. That’s what the surge of activity was. Problem with the power?
Kate: Not possible. We’ve got backups.
Kate: Why do they all say seven?
The Doctor: Seven. Seven? What’s important about seven? Seven Wonders of the World. Seven streams of the river Ota. Seven sides of a cube.
Amy: A cube has six sides.
The Doctor: Not if you count the inside.
The Doctor: It has to be a countdown.
Kate: Not in minutes.
The Doctor: Why would it be minutes, Kate? We have to get humanity away from those cubes. God knows what they’ll do if they hit zero. Get the information out any way you can. News channels, web sites, radio, text messages. People have to know that the cubes are dangerous.
Amy: Okay, but why is it starting now? I mean the cubes arrived months ago. Why wait this long?
The Doctor: Because they’re clever. Allow people enough time to collect them, take them into their homes, their lives. Humans: the great earlier Doctors. And then—wham—profile every inch of Earth’s existence.
Kate: To discover how best to attack us.
The Doctor: Get that information out anyway you can. Go!
Amy: Doctor, please. You don’t have to do this.
Kate: She’s right. You don’t have to be in there. We can do this remotely.
The Doctor: Remotely isn’t my style. See you after.
The Doctor: Geronimo.
Kate: What’s happening?
Amy: Well? What’s in there?
The Doctor: There is nothing in here.
Amy: Well that’s good. You know, it’s not bombs. It’s not aliens.
The Doctor: Why? Why is there nothing inside? Why? It doesn’t make any sense!
The Doctor: Glasses, is it the same? Is it the same all around the world?
Kate: They’re empty. We’re safe. Right?
The Doctor: No. No no no no. We are very far from safe. All along every action has been deliberate. Why draw attention to the cubes if they don’t contain anything.
Amy: Doctor, look. {people are collapsing}
Researcher: They’re CCTV feeds from across the world. Showing the same.
Kate: People are dying.
The Doctor: What? They can’t be dying. How? How are they dying?
Kate: I want information on how people are being affected.
The Doctor: The cubes brought people close together. They opened the men— {he convulses in pain}.
Amy: Doctor? What’s the matter?
The Doctor: I don’t know!
Researcher: Hospitals are logging a global surge in heart failures, cardiac arrests.
The Doctor: That’s it! Ah! Ah! Only one heart. The other one’s not working! Only one heart, only one heart!
Amy: Okay, I’m going to take you to the hospital!
The Doctor: No no no no. Just one second. Turn around! Turn around! Turn around! Tell me, show me—ten seconds after the cubes opened show me the patterns in their electrical currents. See?
Kate: No.
The Doctor: Yes. The power cut. They sucked the power and then— They’re signal boxes. People leaning in—wham—pure electrical surge after the cube, targeted at the nearest human heart. The heart. An organ powered by electrical current. Short circuited. How to destroy a human: go for the heart. {wincing in pain} Crickey Moses!
Kate: Doctor, the scan you set running. The transmitter locations, it’s found them.
The Doctor: Oh, look at them all. Pulsing, bold as brass. Seven of them all across the world. Seven stations, seven minutes. Why is that important? {pained} Ow! Ow. How do you people manage one heart? It is pitiful! A wormhole, bridging two dimensions. Seven of them hitched on to this planet, but but but where’s the closest one? Glasses, zoom in.
Amy: It’s the hospital where Rory works.
The Doctor: How many deaths have been reported?
Kate: We don’t know. We think it could have been a third of the population.
The Doctor: Kate, I have to find the wormhole. But the attacks could still happen. Tell the world. Tell them how to deal with this. The world needs your leadership right now.
Kate: I’ll do my best.
The Doctor: Of course you will. Good luck.
Amy: How long are you going to last with one heart?
The Doctor: Not much longer. I need to locate the wormhole portal. {his screwdriver gets a reading} Hello? Hello! {to the little girl} You are giving off some very strange signals.
Amy: Oh my god.
The Doctor: Outlier droid. Monitoring everything. If I shut her down, I can… I can’t do it. Amy, I need both hearts.
The Doctor: Welcome back, Lefty! Woo hoo! Two hearts! Back in the game! {he kisses her} Never do that to me again.
Amy: Oh. A portal to another dimension in a goods lift?
The Doctor: The energy signals converge here. Does seem a bit cramped though.
The Doctor: Through the looking glass, Amelia.
Amy: Where are we?
The Doctor: We’re in orbit. One dimension to the left.
Amy: Rory!
The Doctor: Siboran smelling salts. Outlawed in seven galaxies.
The Doctor: Woah! What kind of a welcome do you call that? Get him out of here, now!
Amy: What are you going to do?
The Doctor: Absolutely no idea. Get him to the portal.
Shakri (Steven Berkoff): So many of them, crawling the planet. Seeping into every corner.
The Doctor: It’s not possible. I thought the Shakri were a myth. A myth to keep the young of Gallifrey in their place.
Shakri: The Shakri exist in all of time. And none. We travel alone. And together. The seven.
The Doctor: The Shakri craft, connected to Earth through seven portals in seven minutes. Ah. But why?
Shakri: Serving the word of the Tally.
The Doctor: Why the cubes? Why Earth?
Shakri: Not Earth. Humanity. The Shakri will halt the human plague before the spread.
The Doctor: Erase humanity before it colonizes space. We thought the cubes were an invasion. The start of war.
Shakri: The human contagion only must be eliminated.
Amy: Who you calling a contagion?
The Doctor: Oi! Didn’t I tell you two to go?
Rory: You should have learned by now.
Amy: Yeah. And what is this “tally” anyway?
The Doctor: Some people call it Judgment Day. Or The Reckoning.
Amy: Don’t you know?
The Doctor: I never wanted to find out.
Shakri: Before the closure, there is the tally. The Shakri serves the Tally!
The Doctor: The pest controllers of the universe. That’s how the tales went, isn’t it?
Amy: Wow. That is some serious weird bedtime story.
The Doctor: You can talk. Wolf in your grandma’s nightdress.
The Doctor: So. Here you are, depositing slug pellets all over the earth. Made attractive, so humans will collect them, hoping to find something beautiful inside. Because that’s what they are. Not pests or plague, creatures of hope. Forever building and reaching. Making mistakes of course. Every life form does. But. But— they learn. And they strive for greater and they achieve it. You want a tally. Put their achievements against their failings, through the whole of time. I will back humanity against the Shakri every time.
Shakri: The Tally must be met. The second wave will be released.
Amy: What does that mean?
The Doctor: It’s going to release more cubes to kill more people.
Kate: Tell the Secretary General, it’s not just hospitals and equipment, it’s people. Our best hope now is each other.
Shakri: The human plague, breeding and fighting. And when cornered, they rage to destroy. You’re too late, Doctor. The tally shall be met.
Amy: He’s gone!
The Doctor: He was never really here. Just the ship’s automated interface, like a talking propaganda poster.
The Doctor: I can stop the second wave. I can disconnect all the Shakri craft from their portals, leave them drifting in the dark space. Ah! But all those people who were near the cubes, so many of them will have died.
Amy: I restarted one of your hearts.
Rory: You’d need mass defibrillation.
The Doctor: Of course. Ah! Beautiful. But. Pond. Ponds! We are going to go one better than that. The Shakri used the cubes to turn people’s hearts off. Bingo! We’re going to use them to turn them back on again.
Amy: Will that work?
The Doctor: Ah. Creatures of hope. Has to.
The Doctor: Thirty seconds. Don’t let me down, cubes. You’re working for me now.
The Doctor: Oh dear. All those cubes. There’s going to be a terrible wave of energy ricocheting up here any second. {beat} Run.
Rory: I’m going to miss this.
News Reader: Emergency hospitals and field units are working at full capacity around the world. As millions of survivors of cardiac arrests are nursed back to health, after an unprecedented night across the globe.
Kate: You, ah, you really are as remarkable as Dad said. {she kisses him} Thank you.
The Doctor: My! A kiss from a Lethbridge-Stewart. That’s new.
The Doctor: I better get going. Things to do. Worlds to save. Swings to… swing on. Look. I know. You both have lives here. Beautiful, messy lives. That is what makes you so fabulously… human. You don’t want to give them up. I understand.
Brian: Actually, it’s you they can’t give up, Doctor. And I don’t think they should. Go with him. Go save every world you can find. Who else has that chance? Life will still be here.
The Doctor: You could come, Brian.
Brian: Somebody’s got to water the plants. Just bring them back safe.
Amy: So that was the year of the slow invasion. When the Earth got cubed and the Doctor came to stay. It was also when we realized something the Shakri never understood. What cubed actually means. The Power of Three.